Deeplinks Blog posts about Digital Video

After further investigation of reports of Vista refusing to record NBC, we have found at least one case where a user receiving digital TV over-the-air has been blocked from recording TV shows. Justin Sanders, who took this screenshot, says he was recording Raleigh's HDTV channel WNCN-DT1 on his Vista machine when a popup stating that "restrictions set by the broadcaster ... prohibit recording of this program" appeared.

This is significant: this is the first case we've heard of equipment voluntarily obeying broadcast flag-like restrictions on TV content digitally broadcast over-the-air.

We're still investigating whether these involved over-the-air digital TV, which would mean that NBC was the first broadcaster to attempt to revive the abandoned ATSC "broadcast flag" (as opposed to cable and analog copy control signals like CGMS-A which have been used before).

The immense popularity of sites like YouTube has unexpectedly turned Flash Video (FLV) into one of the de facto standards for Internet video. The proliferation of sites using FLV has been a boon for remix culture, as creators made their own versions of posted videos. And thus far there has been no widespread DRM standard for Flash or Flash Video formats; indeed, most sites that use these formats simply serve standalone, unencrypted files via ordinary web servers.

Just three days into the new year, we have another example of DRM punishing paying customers, rather than "pirates." Netflix subscriber Davis Freeberg ran headlong into an incompatibility between Microsoft DRM and ... Microsoft DRM.

While the Senate floor was
href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=2126247">rejecting one flag
amendment, the Senate Commerce committee was letting another two&#8212the broadcast flag and audio flag&#8212slip
by. Senator Sununu spoke strongly against the flags, noting that we don't need technology mandates that inject federal bureaucrats into technology design decisions, but chose ultimately to withdraw his amendments to remove the audio and broadcast flags from the larger telecom package. But he said he may
propose to remove them again when&#8212or if&#8212the bill reaches the Senate
floor.

The bill still has
another day of mark-up in committee, focusing on the controversial
network neutrality proposals. But they won't be revisiting the flags. So, if the committee ultimately passes a telecom reform bill, the flags will be in it.